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Son of Whyachi
Son of Whyachi was an American heavyweight shufflebot which attempted to enter Season 2 of Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors. However, its application for the show was rejected by Mentorn, with possible reasons including its status as a heavyweight champion on rival robot combat show BattleBots. Design Son of Whyachi was a silver, black and red shufflebot, which utilized a '3-phase walking beam' mechanism as its source of locomotion. The robot was armed with a large overhead rotating weapon, which consisted of an interconnected tri-bar spinner with a 5ft diameter and hammers at each end. The hammers, mounted close to the arena floor, were made out of hardened S7 tool steel and weighed 12lbs each, contributing to a total weight of 120lbs for the weapon alone. Spinning at 390rpm, with a tip speed of 70mph, Son of Whyachi's hammers proved exceptionally destructive, and allowed it to completely immobilize five of its first seven opponents during its first season in BattleBots. However, the robot had a top speed of only 4mph, and the weapon sometimes had sufficient force to damage itself during attacks on other robots. As shufflebots in Seasons 1 and 2 of Extreme Warriors were allowed to weight up to 350lbs (160kg)http://runamok.tech/rules/RWEW1_rules.htmlhttp://runamok.tech/rules/RWEW2_rules.html, Son of Whyachi would have initially taken advantage of this allowance by weighing 315lbs (approximately 143kg). Qualification Son of Whyachi had attempted to enter Season 2 of Extreme Warriors via an online application, which was intended to be its final appearance in its original shufflebot form. However, Mentorn rejected Team Whyachi's application via e-mail; Gearheads: The Turbulent Rise of Robotic Sports claims that as Son of Whyachi was an established BattleBots competitor, they were against allowing it to compete in Robot Wars competitions. Terry Ewert also stated in Gearheads his belief that the real reason for Son of Whyachi not being selected was because of the producers' concerns over the damage its hammers could inflict on the House Robots. Series Record Outside Robot Wars Prior to its attempted qualification into Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors, Son of Whyachi made its debut in BattleBots Season 3.0. It first defeated Shaka on a judges' decision after ripping its castors off, before proceeding to land back-to-back knockouts against Crab Meat, Kill-O-Amp, Nightmare, MechaVore and Hexadecimator to reach the Heavyweight Final. There, Son of Whyachi faced the then-reigning Heavyweight Champion BioHazard; despite initially struggling and suffering damage to its own weapon, it was able to tear off some of BioHazard's skirts and eventually immobilise it on one side. When the battle was stopped prematurely, Son of Whyachi won the subsequent judges' decision, becoming the Heavyweight Champion at its first attempt. Due to the change in rules regarding shufflebots, Son of Whyachi was reclassified as a Super Heavyweight in BattleBots Seasons 4.0 and 5.0 and the 2004 NPC Charity Open, replacing Team Whyachi's other super heavyweight [http://battlebots.wikia.com/wiki/Whyachi Whyachi]. Due to its opponents now generally being much tougher against the spinning hammers, Son of Whyachi fared less well in this category. It lost its first battle of Season 4.0 to Swirlee before switching to a wheeled design for Season 5.0 and beating Steel Reign before losing to No Apologies . It was renamed Nitro SOW for the 2004 NPC Charity Open where it received a bye and beat OUCH!! then lost to Bounty Hunter and Psycho Splatter 2. In addition to Son of Whyachi, Team Whyachi built several other robots for competitions in various weight categories, including televised and non-televised BattleBots events. These include: *'Y-Pout', a triangular-shaped sit-and-spin heavyweight, which competed in BattleBots Season 4.0 and 5.0. *'Why Not', a middleweight version of Y-Pout. *'YU812', a lightweight version of Son of Whyachi. *'Red Square', a middleweight with a uniquely-designed front-hinged flipper and a body shape largely resembling that of BioHazard. *'Falcon', an invertible middleweight robot with a spinning drum. *'Warrior', a four-wheeled robot armed with a titanium toothed plough. This robot also entered Robotica Season 2 as ' Whyatica'. *'Warrior SKF', a rebuilt Warrior with a spinning rim and flipper similar in concept to Revenge of Trouble & Strife, which entered the 2009 BattleBots events. *'BABS', a robot very similar to Red Square, only silver and armed with a BioHazard-style lifter, which also competed at the 2009 events. For the ABC BattleBots reboot, Team Whyachi returned with Warrior Clan - essentially Warrior SKF accompanied by two small wedge-shaped minibots armed with flamethrowers. In Season 1, Warrior Clan reached the round of 16 despite having one of its minibots obliterated by Nightmare at one point, eventually losing to Team Raptor's Ghost Raptor. In Season 2, Warrior Clan returned with the minibots replaced by a drone named Dragon. After winning its first round battle against Splatter to reach the round of 32, it was defeated there by the eleventh seed HyperShock, which took Dragon down with a rake and immobilised the main part of Warrior Clan through sustained attacks with its drum. Son of Whyachi made its BattleBots return in 2016, as Team Whyachi's second entry into Season 2, also shortened to SOW. It fought in a preliminary qualifier to earn entry into the main bracket, likely due to Warrior Clan already having a place in the main bracket. There, Son of Whyachi fought Ultraviolent, and Creepy Crawlies, a five-way clusterbot entered by a team of British students, Ian Watts, his son, and John Frizell. Son of Whyachi dominated its qualifier, ripping apart Creepy Crawlies, while Ultraviolent never moved, giving Son of Whyachi a place in the bracket. It then defeated the former semi-finalist Ghost Raptor in a grudge match from the previous season, and earned the 6th seed and a place in the round of 32, but suffered a surprise knock-out loss at the hands of Poison Arrow there. After BattleBots Season 2, Team Whyachi put Son of Whyachi's body up for auction on eBay, as they intended to build a new body for a possible third season. There were a huge number of bids for 10 days and the chassis was finally sold for a sum of $1,525. Son of Whyachi also appeared in the 2018 season of BattleBots, albeit without Terry Ewert. Son of Whyachi lost its first battle to Brutus after being flipped over, but earned a destructive knockout win over Lucky in its second battle, and caused Monsoon to catch fire for Son of Whyachi's second consecutive win, leading to a third straight win after felling End Game in a single hit. Son of Whyachi qualified for the Top 16 as the eighth seed, but lost its opening battle against Lock-Jaw by judges' decision. Warrior Clan was renamed Warrior Dragon, and entered as well, partnered with a small minibot and its 'Dragon' drone, winning its first battle against Chomp on a split decision. Warrior Dragon started strongly in its second battle of the season, taking the lead against ROTATOR, but lost mobility in the late stages of the battle, and a 2-1 Judges' decision declared that Warrior Dragon had lost to ROTATOR. Warrior Dragon's third and final fight was yet again a split decision loss, after becoming immobile in the late stages of its battle with Warhead. Son of Whyachi - 2019.png|Son of Whyachi at BattleBots in 2019 Son of Whyachi - Team.png|Son of Whyachi with its team at BattleBots in 2019 Hydra - 2019.png|Hydra at BattleBots in 2019 Hydra - BattleBots Team.png|Hydra with its team at BattleBots in 2019 Falcon - 2019.png|Falcon at BattleBots in 2019 Falcon - BattleBots Team.png|Falcon with its team at BattleBots in 2019 Team Whyachi entered the 2019 season of BattleBots with three separate robots: Son of Whyachi, the hydraulic flipper Hydra, and the twin drum spinner Falcon. Son of Whyachi and Hydra both reached the Top 16, with Son of Whyachi defeating HUGE, Texas Twister, Kraken and Copperhead, losing only to Whiplash, while Hydra won four straight fights against Free Shipping, WAR Hawk, Petunia and Bronco. However, both were knocked out in the first round of the Top 16, with Son of Whyachi falling to SawBlaze, and Hydra losing to Minotaur. Falcon was less successful, losing to Breaker Box on a split Judges' decision and then falling to Ribbot by knockout, although it did defeat Marvin. Trivia *In 2003, Son of Whyachi was inducted into The Combat Robot Hall of Fame as an inaugural member, in recognition of its engineering, powerful spinning weapon and direct influence on shufflebot rules in future competitions.http://runamok.tech/hall_of_fame.html References External Links *Team Whyachi page on the original and Season 5.0 versions of Son of Whyachi *Team Whyachi page on the current version of Son of Whyachi *[http://battlebots.wikia.com/wiki/Son_of_Whyachi Son of Whyachi on BattleBots Wiki] Category:Robots with Bar Spinners Category:Shufflebots Category:Robots from Wisconsin Category:US robots that competed in BattleBots Category:Robots from teams that entered Robotica Category:Robots in The Combat Robot Hall of Fame Category:Robots which failed to qualify for any main series